Category: British Muslims

This is just another example of the propaganda war against Muslims being waged by the Western media. Michael Gove is a known Islamophobe, and he is the person responsible for producing that fabricated report on the “hijacking of British Islam”. This is another example of the neo-con extremists propagating their anti-Islamic agenda through the media. Micheal Gove has links to the American neo-cons and is a known sympathiser to their cause.

A rightwing thinktank which claimed to have uncovered extremist literature on sale at dozens of British mosques was last night accused of basing a report on fabricated evidence.

The report by Policy Exchange alleged that books condoning violent jihad and encouraging hatred of Christians, Jews and gays were being sold in a quarter of the 100 mosques visited. But BBC2’s Newsnight said examination of receipts provided by the researchers to verify their purchases showed some had been written by the same person – even though they purported to come from different mosques. Several receipts also misspelled the names or addresses of the mosques where the books were supposedly sold.

The report, the Hijacking of British Islam, was based on the work of four teams of two researchers each who visited 100 mosques. They claimed to have found the controversial material in bookshops attached to 25 mosques, including one at Regent’s Park, London, and others in Manchester, Birmingham, Edinburgh, Oxford and High Wycombe.

Inayat Bunglawala, assistant secretary general of the Muslim Council of Britain, said: “Policy Exchange produced a report that was given a lot of publicity, and Newsnight deserve credit for exposing the incredibly shoddy and dubious methodology that Policy Exchange have resorted to. It would seem that Policy Exchange had already decided what they wanted to say about mosques and just went out to find or should I say invent the evidence to justify their prejudices.”

The Newsnight investigation concentrated on mosques in and around London but, as Osama points out, questions about the credibility of the Hijacking of British Islam report were raised at the time by the Edinburgh Central Mosque – where nobody had come across the literature that Policy Exchange claimed to have discovered on their premises.

BBC in legal bid to hide anti-Israel report
29/3/07 If any of you British citizens think your wallet feels a little light of late, perhaps the reason may be down to events at the BBC within the last few weeks. An internal memo into the BBC’s slanted coverage of the Middle East conflict, in particular in regards to Israel, has become the subject of an intense legal battle between the corporation and the Information Tribunal that regulates the media giant. A few months ago a report was published by the BBC Board of Governors on the organization’s coverage of the Middle East. It found that the BBC was not systemically biased, i.e. the organization was not constructed in such a way that created bias, but stated that the public believed its news coverage was slanted against Israel. But BBC executives admitted last year that the organization is “dominated by homosexuals, people from ethnic minorities, deliberately promotes multiculturalism, is anti-American, anti-countryside, and more sensitive to the feelings of Muslims than Christians”. Continue reading “Supposed Anti-Semitism- BBC in legal bid to hide anti-Israel report”→

If Britons can join the Israeli army, those who fight for Palestine can’t be treated as terrorists

Ismail Patel
Tuesday December 5, 2006
The Guardian

The Arab-Israeli conflict is unlike any other regional conflict. As the UN secretary general, Kofi Annan, put it: “No other conflict carries such a powerful symbolic and emotional charge among people far removed from the battlefield.” Not surprisingly, this has had its impact on multicultural Britain, with different communities aligning themselves to varying degrees with the Israeli and Palestinian causes.

Everyone in a democracy has the right to argue for their views and engage in public debate. But there is no equality when it comes to how the British government treats those who want to give physical support to Israel and those who want to do the same for the Palestinians. Such double standards feed resentment in Britain’s Muslim community at the government’s failure to recognise its legitimate grievances, as highlighted in yesterday’s report by the thinktank Demos.

In recent months the media have reported on the recruitment of British Jews to fight in the Israeli army, now in its 40th year of occupation of Palestinian territory in defiance of international law and UN resolutions. Some are intending to emigrate; others to return to Britain after serving in the Israeli army. But we have not had a word of concern from the British government. In the Muslim community, however, the question is widely raised as to how British citizens can travel to another country and fight in its army of illegal occupation without any repercussions. Would that be the case if, say, a young Muslim or Briton of Palestinian origin travelled to the occupied Palestinian territories – let alone occupied Iraq – to protect his or her homeland or co-religionists? Of course not: such volunteers could expect to be arrested under this government’s anti-terrorism legislation as soon as they returned.

These Britons who go to fight for Israel are volunteering to serve in the frontline of Israel’s war in the illegally occupied territories of the West Bank and Gaza. Some have acknowledged that they have been or will be engaged in the killing of Palestinians. Under international law they and those who facilitate their enlistment are committing war crimes.

Presumably the politicians’ silence can be explained by Britain’s support for the Israeli government, both diplomatic and military. But how does that sit with the government’s regular homilies to the Muslim community about citizenship and loyalty to the flag? It might be argued that as Israel is a state – unlike the Palestinian Authority or Palestinian political organisations – and Britons are entitled to dual citizenship, with any military-service obligations that entails, there can be no objection. But the fact that the Palestinian people have no state is of course at the heart of this uniquely internationally inflammatory conflict. And those fighting against the illegal occupation of their land are entitled to do so under international law.

The British government’s indifference to this recruitment is feeding the alienation and radicalisation of young Muslims, who can be labelled terrorists for even voicing support for the Palestinians.

Perhaps British citizens should not serve in foreign armies full stop. But the essential point is that there must be equality. If Britons are allowed to join the Israeli army, the same right should be accorded to those – particularly of Palestinian origin – who wish to volunteer to defend lands Israel occupies. Alternatively, both should be barred.

We need a shift in approach at the top. Tony Blair has expressed his desire to bring peace to the Middle East, but his actions – most recently his refusal to condemn Israel’s Beit Hanoun massacre at the UN – scarcely suggest an honest broker. At home and in the Middle East, it is time the British government showed some real even-handedness.

· Ismail Patel is chair of the Leicester-based campaign Friends of Al-Aqsa
iap_foa@yahoo.co.uk

09 November 2006
The Islamic Human Rights Commission is deeply concerned by the government’s abject refusal to accept that its policies are largely contributing to the rise of terrorism.
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Islamic Human Rights Commission
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9 November 2006
Press Release: Beckett’s Comments Deny Reality of Life in the UK

The Islamic Human Rights Commission is deeply concerned by the government’s abject refusal to accept that its policies are largely contributing to the rise of terrorism.

Margaret Beckett’s comments today, in once again urging British Muslims to speak out against terrorism, falsely suggest that hitherto Muslims have not been doing so. This repeated habit of focussing on the Muslim community is nothing more than a diversionary tactic to deflect attention away from the role played by Britain’s domestic and foreign policies in the rise of terrorism.

IHRC Chair Massoud Shadjareh stated:

“Ms Beckett wants Muslims to speak up about the reality of life in the UK. The undeniable reality of life in the UK is that anti-Muslim hostility and Islamophobia from senior politicians, the media and society, have escalated on a monumental scale in recent years.”

“The other obvious reality is that the government is exploiting the Muslim community as a tool to deny its major role in creating a less safe Britain.”

“Indeed it is the government, not the Muslim community, which has a “special ability” to make a difference in the struggle against extremism, by implementing fair and just policies at home and abroad.”